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In this section we examine HOPE Worldwide, the charitable organization run by the International Churches of Christ (ICC), and discover that HOPE is much more than an effort to “give hope to a hurting world.” We will find that HOPE exists to advance the aims and objectives of the ICC.
[Note: this article does not deny that many people have been helped through HOPE, nor that many sincere people have dedicated their time as HOPE volunteers. These criticisms are directed instead at ICC leadership’s (mis-)use of HOPE.]
front 7 a: a person, group, or thing used to mask the identity or true character or activity of the actual controlling agent (1)
With HOPE Worldwide, ICC leadership wants to have its cake and eat it, too.
The ICC claims HOPE is a separate organization, yet takes credit for its successes. The ICC flaunts celebrity endorsements of HOPE as if they were endorsements for the ICC – even when these celebrities know nothing about the ICC. ICC publicity materials celebrate the successes of HOPE Worldwide, “The benevolent arm of the church,”(2) filling church publicity with references to HOPE and the ICC’s controlling role in HOPE’s projects. At the same time, many (but not all) of HOPE’s own materials have scarcely acknowledged the ICC – in fact, many HOPE press releases haven’t mentioned the church at all. Attorneys for HOPE reportedly say that HOPE and the ICC are separate corporations, operating independently of one another.(3)
Remarkably, while ICC leaders have claimed that HOPE is “separate from the church,”(4) HOPE’s Board of Directors is made up of the ICC’s most senior leaders. According to HOPE's 2000 Annual Report, its board was comprised of all ten of its non-HOPE World Sector Leader couples plus movement founders Kip and Elena McKean (see Figure 1). ICC World Sector Leaders for HOPE, Bob and Pat Gempel, are HOPE's President and Executive Vice President. HOPE's Chairman of the Board? According to an ICC book, HOPE's board was chaired by none other than Kip McKean(5).
Figure 1: HOPE Leadership vs. ICC World Sector Leaders (WSL)
Name HOPE title ICC title Thomas [Kip] McKean Chairman of the Board* founder and (then) World Missions Evangelist Elena Garcia McKean Board Member (then) Leader of Women World Sector Leaders Doug Arthur Board Member WSL, British Commonwealth Joyce Arthur Board Member WSL, British Commonwealth Al Baird Board Member WSL, Media/Law Gloria Baird Board Member WSL, Media/Law Russ Ewell Board Member WSL, The NET Gail Ewell Board Member WSL, The NET Andy Fleming Board Member WSL, Administration Tammy Fleming Board Member WSL, Administration Marty Fuqua Board Member WSL, Northern Federation Chris Fuqua Board Member WSL, Northern Federation Pedro Garcia-Bengochea Board Member WSL, Central & South America and Florida Laura Garcia-Bengochea Board Member WSL, Central & South America and Florida Bob Gempel President WSL, HOPE Worldwide Pat Gempel Executive Vice President WSL, HOPE Worldwide Scott Green Board Member WSL, China Lynne Green Board Member WSL, China Steve Johnson Board Member WSL, ACES (Africa/Carribean/Eastern States) Lisa Johnson Board Member WSL, ACES (Africa/Carribean/Eastern States) Frank Kim Board Member WSL, Pacific Rim Erica Kim Board Member WSL, Pacific Rim Randy McKean Board Member WSL, New England & Europe Kay McKean Board Member WSL, New England & Europe Source:
HOPE Wordwide, Annual Report 2000, p. 24.
*Robert Gempel, Pat Gempel, Wyndham Shaw and Jeanie Shaw (Eds.), Hope for a Hurting World, DPI, Woburn, MA, 1997, p. 14.
If HOPE’s leadership looks a lot like the ICC’s, then so do its “volunteers.” HOPE claims that “volunteerism is the backbone of our work,”(6) yet most of HOPE’s “volunteers” are ICC members who participate at the direction of ICC leadership. For example, the New York City Church of Christ claimed that 3,500 of its members knocked on doors as “volunteers” for HOPE for Kids in October 1994,(7) yet it had only 3,500 members at the time.(8) A dynamic of forced-volunteerism makes HOPE for Kids events mandatory for most ICC members.
It’s ironic that the “separate” organization, HOPE, has been used to recruit members for the ICC. In fact, the “H-O-P-E” acronym originally stood for “Heaven’s Opportunity Proclaimed Everywhere” when the movement first used it for London evangelism campaigns during the 1980s.(9) Examples of the ICC recruiting via HOPE abound:
One ICC article describes HOPE creating opportunities for the ICC to recruit college athletes, illustrating just how blurred the lines between HOPE and the ICC can get:
“Through the efforts of HOPE worldwide in South Carolina, Joe Weinberg, who is on the ministry staff of the Columbia church, recently had the opportunity to be introduced to Lou Holtz, head football coach for the University of South Carolina. Joe was able to speak to the team the day before the first game and has become a team mentor, having access to the entire team for spiritual counseling and Bible study. Since that time seven different football players have come to campus Bible talks, including three quarterbacks. Lou Holtz has also committed all the USC football players and coaches to volunteer for the annual April HOPE worldwide event.”
Ron Clendenin (Evangelist) and Paul Ramsey, “Great News from the Churches in South Carolina”, acesonline.org, October 1, 1999.
HOPE has helped the ICC leverage its way not just into locker rooms, but entire countries. HOPE President Bob Gempel said in 1994, “HOPE is helping the churches gain favor with governmental authorities,”(15) and he was correct: the ICC has politically employed HOPE to help the ICC plant congregations in countries unreceptive to the church.
Kip McKean spoke of how the ICC “decided to try to win the good will of the government” of Lebanon by first beginning HOPE projects in Beirut before attempting an official church planting. Through HOPE’s Lebanon insulin project, the ICC’s Moe Bishara gained access to the First Lady of Lebanon. McKean described a duplicitous Bishara appeal to the First Lady: “‘Well, you know, we’re here in a little bit of a tenuous situation. We’re Egyptian and – obviously we’re here with HOPE, and we want to try to get a Christian fellowship going.’” Bishara was then promised help getting Lebanese citizenship, ensuring a foothold for the ICC’s Beirut planting.(16)
Certainly, HOPE has done some good work around the world, but this does not excuse ICC leadership’s repeated use of HOPE as a front organization. Clearly, HOPE Worldwide is only separate from the ICC as a legal entity, carrying out and serving the aims of the ICC.
HOPE’s General Counsel and ICC elder Randy Jordan, has written a book chapter about HOPE asking, “Is it Legal?”(17) Perhaps a better question would be, “Is the ICC’s use of HOPE ethical?”
HOPE Worldwide was officially founded in 1991, and within a decade had grown to have a $23 million budget(18) – with most of that money coming from funding sources outside the ICC. Today, HOPE’s raising and spending of funds spurs ethical questions.
Like the ICC’s tithes and Special Contributions, its HOPE contributions are collected with considerable pressure on members. One ICC budget worksheet for members showed “HOPE for Kids” at the top of a model expense list along with “Regular Contribution” and “Special Contribution.” Further down the list were expenses like taxes, rent, groceries, housing and transportation.(19) Members may face ICC rebuke for not reaching arbitrary HOPE fundraising goals (e.g. $100 per New York City Church of Christ member in 1998(20)). In return for the pressure to contribute to HOPE, ICC members typically receive only vague information on HOPE’s use of funds.
But ICC members aren’t the only people financially supporting HOPE. Besides its support from the ICC, HOPE in 1997 received 15% of its income from grants and a whopping 62% from non-ICC “local sources.”(21) Corporations like Johnson & Johnson, Bell Atlantic and AETNA have contributed large sums, and many private citizens and foundations have made contributions to HOPE. Since the majority of HOPE’s income is coming from outside the ICC, it should be asked – are HOPE’s donors outside the ICC properly informed about HOPE’s ICC connection?
Judging from some of HOPE’s fundraising materials, many HOPE donors will be unlikely to make the connection. Fundraising scripts given to New York City Church of Christ members clearly train fundraisers to identify themselves as HOPE for Kids volunteers, not ICC members.(22) A HOPE for Kids fundraising flyer asks donors to make their checks payable to HOPE Worldwide and tells them, “Your donation will help fund the HOPE for Kids program and other affiliates of HOPE Worldwide around the globe.”(23) Yet the flyer does not mention any of HOPE Worldwide’s other programs – most of which are intertwined with the International Churches of Christ:
A watchdog organization has written a “Donor’s Bill of Rights,” saying that all donors have a right to be “informed of the identity of those serving on the [fundraising] organization's governing board.”(25) HOPE's governing board is made up of ICC World Sector Leaders, and many non-ICC HOPE contributors would be alarmed to know that leaders of a reputed cult oversee how their donations are spent.
As counter-cult activists worry that US “faith-based” initiatives will put government money into the hands of cultic groups, with HOPE the ICC seems just such a candidate. ICC spokesman Al Baird said in a 2001 newspaper interview, "We're (not) going to use government money to convert people."(26) HOPE’s track record makes one wonder.
“The mission of HOPE Worldwide is to bring hope to a hurting world.”
HOPE Wordwide, Annual Report 2000, p. 3.
HOPE today serves as the ICC’s biggest source of positive publicity. Unable to generate the same kind of public support for its own mission, the ICC has used publicity about HOPE to aid its disastrous public image, often at the expense of the news media and public figures.
News organizations apparently duped by the HOPE/ICC connection include ABC News. On December 1, 1995, ABC News anchor Peter Jennings named HOPE Medical Director Mark Ottenweller ABC’s “Person of the Week,” citing Ottenweller’s work for Project HOPE but making no mention of the International Churches of Christ.(27) It is unlikely that ABC knew HOPE’s connection to the ICC when it aired this story, considering that it had just aired a highly critical story about the ICC on its 20/20 program in 1993.(28) Other news organizations like The Los Angeles Times have picked up HOPE press releases not mentioning the ICC and written stories about HOPE – even helping HOPE to draw volunteers.(29)
The HOPE publicity machine has exploited public figures for the ICC’s gain, repackaging endorsements of HOPE to the ICC faithful through Kingdom News Network (KNN) videos and other church publicity, causing these “celebrities” to confer credibility on the ICC by association. HOPE’s Unity Award has allowed the ICC to associate itself with world dignitaries:
Through HOPE, the ICC exploits celebrities and politicians, as if the letters "H.O.P.E" stood for "Helping Our Publicity Efforts."
HOPE's thirst for celebrity endorsements caused it to misquote retired US General Colin Powell and future Secretary of State. While speaking at the 1997 Presidential Summit on the Future of America in front of a crowd including HOPE for Kids volunteers, General Powell said on NBC's evening news that "hope is what this summit is all about." HOPE then misquoted Powell on its Web site next to a photograph of him, “…General Colin Powell, declared on national television, that ‘HOPE (worldwide) is what the summit is all about’.”(34) However, General Powell’s organization, America’s Promise, said in a letter to the author that Powell’s words were “not intended as a direct endorsement of Hope for Kids; instead, General Powell was referring to ‘hope’ as ‘the expectation of success.’” America’s Promise then asked HOPE to change its website.(35)
When HOPE gets good publicity, ICC leaders are often there to claim the credit. In March 1999, New York City Council Member Una Clarke(36) announced a resolution making that April “HOPE for Kids Volunteer Recognition Month” in New York.(37) New York City Council Speaker Peter Vallone publicly recognized HOPE, presenting ICC member and Geographic HOPE Leader Bud Chiles a framed proclamation in front of the City Council. Posing with Vallone, Clarke and Chiles for pictures were several senior New York City Church of Christ leaders, including Dan and Cinnamon Conner and Sam and Cynthia Powell. No mention was made of the ICC,(38) yet ICC leaders were there to take credit. Speaker Vallone later told a TV reporter he was unaware that all of the participants in the ceremony had been ICC members.(39)
Another New York politician had spoken at a HOPE for Kids rally, only to have his endorsement turn up on a Kingdom News Network (KNN) video, played to ICC churches all over the world. On the video KNN news “anchorman” Anthony Galang lauded HOPE for Kid’s success at getting positive publicity for the ICC:
“More positive TV footage was aired about HOPE for Kids and the church in just one day, than in the previous 15 years combined. As New York City official Carl McCall said [video cuts to footage of McCall speaking at HOPE rally]: ‘For twenty years, I have attended rallies here on this plaza – for twenty years, but this is the most “hopeful” one I’ve ever seen.’”(40)
After being shown the video by FOX TV reporter Mary Garofalo, McCall expressed anger that his endorsement of HOPE for Kids had been twisted into an endorsement of the ICC:
I’m a little outraged, to the fact that I was trying to do something to support a program that had some value, and was good, and now they’re using that kind of endorsement to support something else that I have no commitment to.(41)
This politician, like other HOPE endorsers, donors and workers, had learned that HOPE exists ultimately to benefit the International Churches of Christ.
ICC administrator Jim Blough once summed up the benefits the ICC receives from HOPE:
“Helping the poor opens the door, helping the poor quiets the roar….but finally – this is the cool thing – helping the poor saves even more.”
Jim Blough (World Sector Administrator), The Heart of HOPE, DPI Archive Cassette Series, Tape # 7729, 1992.
Blough’s three points are telling: HOPE has been used by the ICC to open doors – doors of political and social influence. HOPE has been used by the ICC to quiet the roar – the roar of criticism about the ICC and its methods. And above all, HOPE has been used by the ICC to bring even more members – through direct recruiting and propaganda – into the ICC organization.
(1) Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, 1981.
(2) Facts About the Growth of The International Churches of Christ, Medial & Law press kit, Los Angeles, August 1, 1994.
(3) Fox5 News, New York, May 3, 1999.
(4) Thomas A. Jones (Senior Editor), Letters to New Disciples, DPI, Woburn, MA, 1997, p. 104.
(5) Robert Gempel, Pat Gempel, Wyndham Shaw and Jeanie Shaw (Eds.), Hope for a Hurting World, DPI, Woburn, MA, 1997, p. 14.
(6) Hope Worldwide, How You Can Help, hopeww.org, March 1999.
(7) “HOPE for Kids”, Upside Down, New York City Church of Christ, 1995.
(8) Steve Johnson (World Sector Leader), Introduction, Upside Down, New York City Church of Christ Annual Report, 1995.
(9) Linda Case, “British church grows rapidly, hosts July HOPE campaign,” The Christian Chronicle, Vol 42, No. 8, August 1985, p. 12.
(10) Kevin Thigpen, “Where Your Special Missions Dollars Go,” Campus Chronicle, USC campus ministry, Sunday, May 28, 2000.
(11) Fox5 News, New York, May 3, 1999.
(12) Frank & Erica Kim (World Sector Leaders), How to Share Your Faith, DPI, Worburn, MA, 1998, p. 97.
(13) “Cambodia Disciples Define Christianity for the Nation,” icoc.org, December 28, 1998.
(14) Frank & Erica Kim, How to Share Your Faith, pp. 97-107.
(15) Bob Gempel (World Sector Leader, HOPE), The Heart of HOPE, DPI Archive Cassette Series, Tape # 7729, 1992.
(16) Kip McKean (ICC founder), Celebrating the Fifteenth Year, Boston, DPI Archive Cassette Series, Cassette # 9192, September 1994.
(17) Randy (General Counsel, HOPE; Elder, ICC) & Jan Jordan, “Is it Legal?,” HOPE for a Hurting World, DPI, Woburn, MA, 1997, pp. 109 – 112.
(18) Bob & Pat Gempel, “A Message of Hope,” LA Story, July 2000, p. 3.
(19) Robert Gaunnt, “What do I make and where does it all go? Part 2,” acesonline.org, July 1999.
(20) Anticipated Donor List, HOPE Worldwide, 1998.
(21) Revenue Sources, hopeww.org, April 1999.
(22) Volunteer Fund-Raising Script, HOPE for Kids, New York City, 1998.
(23) HOPE for Kids fundraising flyer, HOPE Worldwide, 1998.
(24) Applying for the 1999 HOPE Youth Corps, icoc.org, April 1999.
(25) Philanthropic Research, Inc., Donor’s Bill of Rights, Guidestar.com, April 1999.
(26) Al Baird (World Sector Leader) in Greg Gordon and Kevin Diaz, “Would faith-based initiative fund fringe groups, cults?,” startribune.com, August 6, 2001.
(27) ABC World News Tonight, Transcript #5240, American Broadcasting Corporation, December 1, 1995, 6:30 ET.
(28) Ottenweller himself became a Johannesburg Church of Christ elder in 1999. [“First Elders and Deacons in Africa Appointed in Johannesburg,” Acesonline.org, October 11, 1999.]
(29) Massie Ritsch, Volunteers to Walk for Children's Health, Los Angeles Times (Ventura County Edition), Page B-3, April 11, 1999.
(31) Ironically, a 1993 ABC 20/20 story showed an ICC Bible Study leader, captured on hidden camera, getting a prospective recruit to agree that Mother Theresa was going to hell.
(32) HOPE Worldwide timeline, LA Story, August 1999, pp. 9,10.
(33) “Queen Noor Receives HOPE Unity Award,” hopeww.org, May 10, 2000.
(32) HOPE Worldwide timeline, LA Story, August 1999, pp. 9,10.
(33) “Queen Noor Receives HOPE Unity Award,” hopeww.org, May 10, 2000.
(34) Volunteers, hopeww.org, (parenthesis added by HOPE Worldwide), March 1999.
(35) Joanne Giordano, letter from America’s Promise, September 10, 1999.
(36) In phone conversations with the author, Council Member Clarke said HOPE representatives had made no mention to her of any affiliation between HOPE and the ICC. In fact, she claimed she was unaware that HOPE for Kids was connected with any religious group.
(37) New York City Council Member Una Clarke and HOPE for Kids , “Council Member Clarke to Introduce Resolution Recognizing Kids Health Organization: Victor Robles and Ken Fisher are Prime Co-sponsors,” PRNewswire, March 24, 1999.
(38) The Transcript of the Minutes of the Stated Council Meeting, New York City Council, March 30, 1999.
(39) Fox5 News, New York, May 3, 1999.
(40) Ibid.
(41) Ibid.
Copyright © 2001 Dave Anderson. All rights reserved.
